From the Dust
by Vita Tribuo
Summary: In the aftermath of Hoover Dam, a former legionary settles in Nelson. But war brews as a man known only as the Director and his army of degenerates make moves against the Executor of New Vegas. The legionary must help the Courier while trying to unite the broken Legion under one banner in order to face a force that threatens to overrun the West.


_ It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees." _

_-Emiliano Zapata_

_War. That was all we learned as kids. As legionaries. How to fight and how to die in the name of Caesar. I was but a small child when they plucked me from the Painted Rock Tribe, crushing it in a three month campaign. My mother was taken as a slave while my father was killed. My brother and I...we were trained. Crushed and remolded more like it. _

_I remember the brutality of the training under Nero, trying to survive. Becoming a real legionary at the age of sixteen. Being promoted to Prime at the age of twenty. Becoming a Veteran at the age of twenty-three. Fighting at Hoover Dam. Ten years I have spent in the Legion. Now, I stand here. Watch as my brothers disintegrate into infighting because of the death of Lanius and because of the death of Caesar. The Courier has broken the Legion_.

_Hundreds died in the turbines, hundreds die when the great bomber of the Boomers appeared and rained explosive hell on my Centuria. Surviving as more died when the rangers appeared along with the Courier, killing everything in their path. Watching as Centurion Aeius duel the Courier in the black armor and lose. _

_I am no longer a legionnaire. I cannot be anymore. Roma Nova can never be true anymore. I can only hope to survive in this post-war environment. The Courier has taken control of New Vegas, the iron legions of death roaming the lands. I have made myself a home after the battle. Nelson. Where me and others like me settle, forging a new community. _

_As I write these, let me known that my armor is buried in the mountains south of here. I can no longer wear the crimson armor. Though I will always have the eagle burned into my flesh._

_Mars Exulte. _

_-Septimus Maro _

_Former Veteran of the Red Okies Centuria_

He sighed as he put down the pencil. He scratched his scraggly black beard, which made him look like a great black bear. His hair was long and shaggy, after months of not cutting. His gray eyes were stormy as he gazed into the lantern, trying to find meaning.

It had been four months since Hoover Dam. He had been living in Nelson for two months, eking out a dismal existence as a metal worker. His trail carbine hung from the wall of his humble abode, while his machete was always at his side. He was wearing but a white t-shirt and blue jeans, though he always made sure that his shoulder was covered because of his tattoo.

"Damn," he muttered. A pistol was right on the desk, a .457 Ranger Sequoia he had looted off a dead Ranger after Hoover Dam. The massive revolver only had a few rounds left, the rounds locked up in a small safe that was buried under the floorboards of his house. It was late at night and he needed to sleep.

Septimus no longer used his legion name. He called himself David, after someone in some book called the Bible. He rose, popping his sour muscles. Working as a metalworker was tough business though it did turn a pretty profit. If a sword needed fixing, he fixed it. If metal needed reworking, he did it. It was not pleasant, but he was able to buy food and water, making it easier to exist.

His bed was just a bed in the academic sense. It had once been a mattress. He laid on it, easily drifting into dreamless sleep.

* * *

He awoke several hours later, to the shouting of voices and gunfire. He lived on the edge of Nelson, never being a social creature. His eyes snapping open, he quickly got out of bed, his hands flying for the trail carbine on the wall. Grabbing it, he also grabbed the belt of ammunition that carried the .44 rounds he needed.

He couldn't believe his ears. Whatever it was, the twenty or so people that lived in Nelson were giving all they could. Sporadic gunfire was heard. He panicked, as he had not fired a gun in two months, and that was when they were fending off a pack of coyotes.

David or Septimus, quickly saw it was still dark. The moon was still shining, while dark storm clouds gathered. His small humble shack was on a ridge that was right below the town itself, hidden from the naked eye. The guard towers that had dotted the town when the Legion occupied it were on fire, from what, he did not know. He heard shouting, shouting that reminded him of his days in the Legion.

He would be frightened, but years of experience in fighting taught him to respect fear, but never to embrace it. He quickly kneeled before he slowly started his ascent into the town itself.

The shouting became louder and louder, and it became much clearer as well.

"Round up those damn townies. Boss wants all nice and pretty when we present them to Motor-Runner," came a nasty nasally voice.

"Why we trying to piss off the Courier? Why we here in the first place?" came another voice, this one in the form of a young kid it seemed.

"We getting someone near and dear to his heart. Some gal. He ain't gonna suspect that it was. He's gonna go after the Fiends, the Jackals, the Vipers, everyone but us," the nasty voice said once more.

"How come?" the kid voice asked rather imply.

"He wiped out the Powder Gangers. And yet, here we are! We still alive and kicking! Eddie might be dead but we still are living!" the nasty voice said once more. "Besides, we need the caps to buy weapons, so that's why we hit the town. We got the gal, now we need to get out of town. We got the townies too."

The kid voice went silent for a moment. Then he spoke up.

"Wasn't there another guy that was supposed to be here? Some metalworker that worked right next to the town?" the kid voice asked and Septimus cursed that voice.

"Yeahh. Jonah! Eli! Go get that damn worker! Can't be much of a threat!" and soon pounding steps on dirt answered that order letting Septimus see his opponents.

One was a young lad with an overbite, perhaps nineteen or twenty, wearing a bullet proof vest over a blue jacket. The other was an older fellow, around thirty or so, with a blue jacket and blue jeans. Both were armed with melee weapons. The young one was armed with a baton the other was a sledgehammer.

Septimus saw that he was outnumbered. However he was awake and alert. The two men looked like they had been up for days and were tired. They clearly did not expect a fight from him. He was in the shadows. While he never liked fighting in the shadows, he had to this time, if he wanted any chance of living through the ordeal.

His carbine on the ground, he drew his machete. The sharp steel did so without a peep. He smiled savagely as one of the men lit a cigarette.

"This metal dude, you think he has any experience repairing vehicles?" the younger man asked. The older man just simply shrugged.

As a matter of fact, Septimus had some idea of how to fix up vehicles. While he was training as a legionnaire, he also trained as a blacksmith, a trade he kept up with. He had repaired the steam chariots that the Legion used, mostly in Arizona.

Before the younger man could speak more, a machete plunged straight through his heart, the sharp edge of the blade emerging from his chest. The older man could only look in horror as large amounts of blood started to stream out of the young man. The blade then escaped from the gaping wound, blood dripping. And that blade was connected to a long arm, and that arm to a man that looked like a black bear.

The older man was stunned, but only for a moment. Pausing only to yell.

"For Jonah!" the older man that Septimus could only guess was Eli bellowed, before brining his large sledgehammer in a murderous downward arc that would have crushed the former legionnaire's ribs if he had not rolled out of the way. His machete sang its deadly song, as it had done on countless people before. _Carpe Diem. _Seize the day was what his machete did.

Eli barely had any time to react besides attempt in vain to block the strike. He partially succeeded for only his right index finger was separated from his hand, instead of his entire hand, but it still hurt like hell. Septimus followed with an upward cut, slicing the left hand up, leaving a bloody trail. With his left hand gone, Eli barely had enough time to register the fact that the machete's sharp edge was gliding across his neck. Septimus grinned. He may not be a part of the Legion, but he was still a legionary at heart.

His machete bloodied, he placed it back on his hip. Grasping his trail carbine, he heard more shouting, before two more men emerged from the ruins of Nelson, this time armed with rifles. Both of them were dressed similarly to the two men he had just killed. The rifles were both service rifles, most likely looted off of dead NCR troopers.

Leveling his rifle, he aimed straight for the head of one of the men. Squeezing the trigger softly, the .44 round spun straight out of the barrel, striking the lead man in the chest. Falling on his ass, the man twitched, but did not get up. The other man recoiled with surprise, before shouldering his rifle and opening fire.

"Merda," Septimus muttered, working the lever of the rifle to chamber in a new round. Firing again, he caught the man in the shoulder, making his already piss poor aim worse. Dirt and chunks of pebbles gathered as the half-dozen rounds the service rifle sent went wide. The man bellowed in pain, but he was then silenced when the trail carbine barked once more, ending his misery.

"Shit! Some guy just took out Richard and Jess! Hawkins, give us some covering fire! The rest of you bastards, get those damn people out and head to the Station!" screamed the nasally voice. Soon a machine-gun opened up, forcing Septimus to dive. The machine-gun chattered, tracers stabbing out in the darkness. Pounding footsteps indicated that the rest of the gang was moving out.

The machine gunner was doing himself any favors Septimus saw. He had faced such machine gunners at Hoover Dam. They fired a lot of rounds, but they weren't very accurate. Septimus waited for the gun to go empty. Six seconds of fire later, the gun clicked and he heard the profligate curse. Grinning maliciously, he started to charge the gunner, and was rewarded with his body slamming into another.

His hand slipped to the combat knife that he carried in his boot. Jerking it out, he stabbed the man in the shoulder, making him scream bloody murder. He then dragged the knife from his shoulder to his bicep, cutting deeply into the flesh, pinning the arm there. Bone was there for all the world to see.

"You will tell me everything you know and the pain will stop," Septimus spoke. The man looked up, still howling, before he nodded.

"Good. First, who are you?" he asked, starting it out. It was a something that he had learned. Pain and courtesy went a long way in the wasteland.

The man stared before muttering his name.

"Finley."

Septimus chuckled.

"Well Finley, you went into the wrong business. Who do you work for?" the legionnaire demanded and the man grunted in pain before answering.

"I work for the Director," the man said in pain, gurgling a bit.

"Why does the Director want to piss off the Courier?"

To his surprise, the man laughed, heart in it. He soon coughed, and found the blade soon pressed in his ribs.

"He wants vengeance. Sins of a father. The Director was wronged long ago by the Courier and that gal is the straight ticket to his revenge."

"Who is this girl?"

The man visibly struggled, before the blade was soon in his stomach, gutting him like a pig. It was the worst kind of wound. He would bleed out to death if he didn't get any help soon.

"Her name...her name is..."

"IS WHAT?" Septimus screamed.

"Julia...F-"

And the man died. Septimus cursed heavily in Latin. The town was burning, most of the town was enslaved by whoever this damn Director was and the Powder Gangers or whoever they were working for him. Great. Just great. Shouldering his rifle, he went deep into the mountains just south of him.

The next day, he set out, towards New Vegas, dressed in crimson once more.

* * *

_Hello all! My name is Vita Tribuo, which is roughly translated into Life-giver. I think. I have always been a fan of the Fallout series and I've always wanted to write one of these. Please tell me what you think. _

_-Vito Tribuo_


End file.
